I've just met Liberal leader Stephane Dion for the first time and I have to say, it was a frightening experience. The thought that this fellow could become the prime minister of Canada ought to alarm us.

Everything about Dion seems soft, from his handshake to his policies. His appearance at the Citizen editorial board Friday confirmed the fears I had when the Liberals chose him as their leader. Dion is a verbose, mild-mannered academic with a shaky grasp of English who seems unfit to chair a university department, much less lead a country.

Don't take my word for it. You can catch the interview yourself at ottawacitizen.com.

The Liberal leader is probably very smart in an academic sort of way and quite a decent person, but his ideas reflect the full, knee-jerk left-wing spectrum, and he can't even articulate them well. Nuclear power? He's against it because of concerns about the waste. At the same time that he's against this clean source of electrical power, the Liberal leader is for a dramatic reduction in greenhouse gases.

He's snidely un-American, in the way that the Liberal elite so often is. Canada's failure to meet its Kyoto commitments was partly due to the Americans' election of Kyoto-unfriendly George W. Bush, Dion would have us believe. He also believes it's OK to take shots at the Americans for domestic consumption, but not if you're in Washington. Dion doesn't seem to have learned much from the mistakes of his predecessor, Paul Martin, the man who thought American-bashing would get him re-elected.

Dion is, of course, opposed to an increased private sector role in health care and thinks the federal government would play a useful role by identifying best health care practices, so all the provinces can follow them. Here's a best practice: having enough doctors and nurses. That means having enough money. What's his plan?

Dion tries to tie every issue back to the environment, since it's the one area where he's supposed to be strong. Unfortunately, he's a one-issue candidate with no coherent position on that one issue.

Dion can't say often enough how unfortunate it is that Prime Minister Stephen Harper has wasted a year by not immediately enacting the Liberal environmental strategy. That still compares favourably to the seven or eight years the Liberals wasted. Greenhouse gas emissions went up under the Liberals' watch, but now Dion is attacking Harper for not fixing it all at the last minute. That just doesn't make sense. Dion introduced a motion in the House of Commons this week to force the Conservative government to meet Canada's Kyoto commitments, the same ones the Liberals couldn't meet. It's certainly not feasible at this point.

Dion says he's sorry the Liberals failed to make the environment a big issue in the last election, when Harper was particularly vulnerable. One can understand the strategic regret, but what does it tell us about the Liberals? They'll damn the Conservatives now for not making the environment the issue of the millennium, but only a year ago, they were doing the same thing.

Dion does show a certain intellectual agility when he suggest that the Liberals' very lame Kyoto performance was in part the Conservatives' fault, because they were just so against it. It's challenging to see how this could have mattered in the years when the Liberals had a majority.

Hopeful Liberals have suggested that one of Dion's strengths is that he's not a slick politician. Slick he's not, but it's tough to make an asset out of that. Dion isn't one of those down to earth guys like Ralph Klein. He's more like the wooly-headed professor next door. Dion simply cannot give a clear, succinct answer to a question. It's a necessary skill for any politician at his level.

Harper just wants to build up the military and cut taxes, Dion says, and it's clear that any right-thinking, sorry, left-thinking, person would realize how ridiculous that is. While these priorities will clearly fail to galvanize Canadians, Dion is offering to make us a world leader in "water management."

I'm not a natural consumer of the Liberal brand, but as a voter, I like to feel that I have two valid choices. With Stephane Dion as Liberal leader, that's not the case. Dion would have us believe he's qualified to be prime minister. If he thinks that, he's kidding himself. Let's not let him kid us, too.

I agree that Dion is a puppet. The puppet master would be those Cretinites that still
control the Liberal Party. I truly believe he was anointed by them as they consider him expendable.
The Liberals know full well that they are going to have to spend a little more time in the political wilderness. What better plan than to put him up as the fall-guy for future revelations of Liberal scandal.
If the Liberals lose the next election ( and I believe they will ), Dion will become persona non grata in the Liberal Party. Many of those considered worthy contenders for the leadership
of the party decided to wait this one out. There's a reason for that.

LOST IN TRANSLATION
By Michael Coren
There is an elephant sitting in the corner of the room and the political
elites are pretending it isn't there. Or to put it more directly, the Tory
attack ads on Stephane Dion are missing the point. The most obvious problem
about the leader of the Liberal party is that his English is appalling and
he is often entirely unintelligible.
There. That which we are not supposed to mention. It's okay to lambaste
English-Canadian politicians for their lack of French, even if they
represent completely English-speaking ridings, but never point out that a
man who wants to rule Canada and speak to and for 20 million Anglophones has
an often-impenetrable accent and a bewildering vocabulary.
He's far from stupid. But he learned English late and has spent far too
little time in English Canada and with English-Canadians to have developed
an even acceptable ability to communicate in the English language. Which in
itself reveals just how insular he is and how little he genuinely
understands Ontario and especially western Canada.
Even before becoming Liberal leader, his ineptness caused all sorts of
problems. In 2004 a Jewish school in St. Laurent, Que. was firebombed, the
terrorists leaving a note saying the attack was in response to the policies
of the then-Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon. Dion publicly condemned the
outrage but said it was wrong "because not all Jews support Sharon's
policies."
The logic of the statement, of course, was that the firebombing would have
been acceptable if all Jews did in fact support Sharon. Dion and his people
went into a political spin and explained it was all a language issue and he
had not meant to say that at all. Firebombing schools was, it seemed, never
a good idea. He was, we were told, lost in translation.
Which may or may not be true. But prime ministers can't afford to be lost
anywhere. What makes it all the worse is that Dion is one of the most
arrogant politicians in Ottawa, who frequently exhibits contempt for those
who question him, including members of the media who are supposed -- in
theory at least -- to be asking questions of behalf of the Canadian public.
Dion dismisses contrary opinion and is renowned for having an absolute
belief in his own particular and sometimes peculiar views. He is willing,
however, to retract important statements within hours of making them if
there appears to be any political advantage.
This occurred when he was questioned about his French citizenship, surely a
fundamental issue for an aspiring national leader of a sovereign state.
Initially he rudely told reporters to stop discussing it and that the
subject was closed. Shortly afterwards, when it was revealed just how
negatively his dual citizenship was effecting his popularity, he announced
he would indeed be willing to become purely Canadian.
Similarly with his statement about readmitting politicians soaked in scandal
and who had been expelled from the party. Initially he welcomed and forgave
them but back-peddled within hours when his people told him how hypocritical
he looked. More turnip than Trudeau.
Is this a man who is qualified to govern a country as great and diverse as
Canada? The question is rhetorical and the answer is obvious in any
language.

Their record of creating a culture of ignorance is damaging to Canada neverless Dion is a puppet and the reason why i beleive is the Libs rigged the leadership vote in a Quebecr's favor.

If Dion is a "puppet", who is the puppet master? I have seen you make similar posts in other threads and I am curious about your logic.

the Puppet master is those within the Liberal regime like Chertien loyalists and Trudeau worshippers. These people are the ones who imho pick dion to counter the CPC and Harper, to me it shows they are willing to regain the 10 seats they lost and no doubt in their vanity-filled minds they are going to sabtoge the Conservative supporters in Quebec.

Ah, I don't see Dion as a puppet (this word really bothers me, we shouldn't be using that word - leave it to the Leftist nuts)

I see Dion as a man with aspirations that he is unable to live up to. He's going to prove to be more of an interim leader than Bill Graham was. He's a guy that will soften the image of the liberals until they get a real star up there and get their policies in line... I doubt we'll see him as a Prime Minister.

Ah, I don't see Dion as a puppet (this word really bothers me, we shouldn't be using that word - leave it to the Leftist nuts)

I see Dion as a man with aspirations that he is unable to live up to. He's going to prove to be more of an interim leader than Bill Graham was. He's a guy that will soften the image of the liberals until they get a real star up there and get their policies in line... I doubt we'll see him as a Prime Minister.

I'm with you. I think the term "puppet" has conspiracy theory connotations and suggests that Dion is not making any of his decisions and is only a mouthpiece. He is fully in control of the party of the direction of the party. The environment stamp that he is putting on the Liberals is his own idea. The way he treated Khan and welcomed Garth are another two examples of he is calling the shots.

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